Garment of Shadows: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

by Laurie R. King

  “Did any men come here,” Holmes asked, “before you returned to clear the tray?”

  “No, Monsieur. Well, merely the three men come for the trunk.”

  “A trunk? A large one?”

  “Yes, very pretty, with inlay, but old. It has been in the guest-room for years—the room that you were given—but Mme Lyautey has decided to decorate, and wished some articles removed.”

  “Did Dulac tell you that?”

  “Yes. Because I had not heard of the Madame’s wishes, when the men came to remove it that night.”

  Holmes said in English, “Either the fellow’s a superb liar, or he’s not our man.”

  Mahmoud signalled his agreement by standing and holding out his palm to Youssef. “The key.”

  “Monsieur?”

  “To this back door.”

  With reluctance, Youssef turned to the shelf beside the door, picking up a fist-sized chatelaine of keys. He would have removed one—laboriously—but Mahmoud said, “We will take them all.”

  The key to Dar Mnehbi’s hidden exit, an exit given to the house steward to safeguard, was a piece of Mediaeval iron-work the length of my hand. But the lock was well maintained, and when the ornate black shaft was turned, it moved with ease. “Is there one for Monsieur Dulac’s room?” Mahmoud asked.

  “Oui, Monsieur.” Youssef pointed out a key some three centuries younger than the first.

  We left the sleeping Idir and his anxious uncle in the tiny room, pinned inside by the massive storage chest that Holmes and I wrestled into place against the door, and went in search of a traitor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Dar Mnehbi was an ornate jewel-box better suited for meeting visitors than for housing foreign guests. Lyautey had rooms off the stairway tower, but Holmes and I had been housed in the neighbouring guard-room dar, where, according to Youssef, François Dulac slept tonight, up on the first floor, in a room with an external window.

  In the cramped corridor outside Youssef’s barricaded door, we considered the best approach. We had two options: Wake first Lyautey, then the guards, working to convince a series of sleepy men that they needed rapidly to obey us, hoping that nothing panicked Dulac; or, we could take the direct approach.

  Need I say which we chose?

  The corridor was a plastered mole-tunnel that wound a surprising distance before entering the staircase tower connecting Dar Mnehbi’s ground floor to its rooftop terrace. We eased down the steps to the courtyard. A shaft of soft light came from the entranceway, casting shadows and gleams across the zellij.

  We waited there, straining to hear above the perpetual splash from the fountain, until we were certain where the guards were—or, as it turned out, guard, the source of snoring that overrode the splashes. Mahmoud slipped into the courtyard, leading to the right: By skirting around the sides, past the decorative inner doors and windows of the public salons and the library, any rustle of garments or scuff of feet would be concealed by the fountain.

  The guard-dar was mostly asleep as well, although light came from one of the ground-floor salons, with the low sound of conversation from the guards on duty. They did not hear footsteps creeping up the stone stairs, or moving across the railed balcony.

  Youssef had said that Dulac’s door did not have a bolt, merely the keyed lock.

  And it was true, there was no bolt.

  Unfortunately, there was a sturdy wedge.

  The key slid in, the mechanism turned smoothly, Holmes’ shoulder went against the door, and nothing happened.

  Except for inside the room. A light came on beneath the door, followed by a flurry of thumps and motion from within as the occupant tumbled from his bed, jerked on trousers, stepped into shoes, and scrabbled for his hidden stash of valuables before yanking open the window to his roof-top escape.

  Only to stop at the sight of a revolver barrel, inches from his nose.

  His hands went up.

  “Drop what you’re carrying,” I said. “Now move away, slowly.”

  When he was on the other side of the little room, near the rhythmically thumping door, I told him to turn his back to me, leaving his hands in the air. “M. Dulac, if you turn around, if you reach for that pistol in your belt, I will shoot you.”

  Fortunately, he believed me. He stood motionless as I struggled through the window. I plucked the gun from his waist-band and kicked the wedge from beneath the door just as the guards came up the stairs.

  Holmes and Mahmoud tumbled in, slamming the door and turning the key.

  Louder pounding ensued, breaking off only when Holmes identified himself. When the guards proved unwilling to accept his name as sufficient authority, I told Dulac to send them away.

  He did, although I did not imagine they would retreat altogether.

  Holmes began an immediate circuit of the room, emptying drawers, prodding wood-work, unscrewing the cap ends of the bed, getting down on his knees to examine the boards. Handing Mahmoud my revolver, I retrieved the object Dulac had been in the process of shoving into his shirt-front when he ran into the end of my gun.

  It was a washed-leather bag about the size of my fist, very heavy, securely knotted. I picked open the ties, and looked inside: francs, sovereigns, pesetas, and two American double-eagles, but mostly Deutschmarks. Gold, all of them.

  “Treachery appears lucrative, here in the French Protectorate,” I remarked.

  “What do you mean?” Dulac seized upon bluster as a shield, and drew himself up to make the most of it. “What are you doing?” he demanded of Holmes, who had lifted the curtain-rod from the little window and let the fabric slide to the floor. “What is the meaning of this invasion? I thought we were being attacked by town ruffians. I was about to go out of the window to hide my life savings.”

  I glanced sideways at Mahmoud. “Quick thinker, this.”

  “A bit late for that.”

  “Who is this fellow?” Dulac demanded, gazing down his nose at the admittedly scruffy figure of Mahmoud. “If you don’t let the guards in at once, I’ll—”

  Holmes dropped the curtain-rod, which bounced with a hollow metallic clatter, and held up a tightly furled paper tube. We waited politely for Dulac to complete his threat. We might be waiting still, but for voices outside the door.

  “François? What is going on?” Lyautey’s voice, as crisp as if he’d been up for hours.

  But his secretary did not appear altogether reassured at the arrival of authority. His voice squeaked, just a little, with his answer. “These … individuals, Monsieur le Maréchal! They have invaded my rooms, stolen my goods, threatened my person. I demand—”

  Holmes stepped to the door and turned the key. Lyautey stood in the doorway with three armed guards at his back. He cinched his dressinggown, straightened his moustaches, and ran an eye over the room before cocking one eyebrow at Holmes. “Would you care to tell me what this means?”

  “Here?” Holmes asked.

  Lyautey tilted his head, taking in the number of people and the size of the room. “Perhaps the library,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  We formed a parade: Lyautey at the fore as a commanding officer must, followed by a guard, Mahmoud, Holmes, Dulac, me, and two more guards. Holmes and Mahmoud had their weapons taken, but the soldiers looked at me, and let me pass. Foolish men.

  The sleep-befuddled household—guests, guards, and servants—stood in doorways and at railings to watch us go, along the balcony, down the steps, through the corridor, and across the zellij courtyard of Dar Mnehbi. We filed into the library at the far corner, where a stout door and the muffling effects of carpets and books meant that if we kept our voices low, the entire city might not know our business by sunset. One of the guards lit the lamps and stirred up the brazier, then Lyautey told him to shut the door and stand away. Reluctantly, the soldier left.

  When the five of us were alone in the room, the Maréchal fixed us, one at a time, with that aristocratic glare. When he got to Mahmoud, the gaze sharpened
as he saw beneath the dirt and beard. “You? What on earth are you doing here?”

  Before any of us could respond, François Dulac raised his voice in complaint: that he had been sleeping in peace when some ruffians began to pound on his door, and when he would have escaped, that woman with her gun—Mahmoud kicked him, turning his tirade to a squeak, and I moved forward to separate them before Mahmoud’s hand could grow a blade.

  Holmes addressed his cousin, the Resident General. “We have uncovered a problem in your security, Monsieur le Maréchal.”

  Holmes clamped a hand on Dulac’s shoulder and manoeuvred him into a chair at the long table. Mahmoud pulled another chair a few feet away, that he might keep an eye on the prisoner’s every motion. Holmes took a seat across the table from Dulac, with Lyautey to his left at the table’s head. The Maréchal caught my eye, since I was the only one still on her feet.

  “We need coffee. Would you please find Youssef and tell him—”

  Holmes interrupted. “Youssef is … otherwise occupied. This shouldn’t take long. Monsieur Dulac, would you like to explain these items, which we found in your room?”

  He laid the tightly furled tube of paper on the table, then set the bulging leather bag beside it. Lyautey picked that up first, stirring the coins with one long finger before he tugged the strings shut and reached for the paper.

  It was a map, a copy of one that lay in the drawer of the table where we were seated, with the addition of neat pencilled annotations. Each of the French border posts on the original had numbers and letters beside them: 6/1/0/t; 9/4/2/nt; 5/3/1/t.

  Mahmoud got up long enough to tap this last annotation. “When I went by that post some days ago, I saw three machine guns, one piece of light artillery, and a telegraph line. It has, one would suppose, a permanent garrison of five?”

  By way of answer, Lyautey lifted his gaze to his secretary.

  “This is your writing, François.”

  Dulac’s pleas and protests might have been the burble of water in the Dar Mnehbi fountain, for all the impact they had on his employer.

  The Maréchal shook his head, slowly, left then right, a motion that carried both personal regret and military condemnation. “You have one very slim chance to save yourself from a firing squad. That is to tell me everything, now.”

  And Dulac believed him. Like a lanced boil, corruption poured out: names and dates, money given and information passed on. At a gesture from Lyautey, Holmes pulled open the table’s drawer and took out a pad and pen, writing down key points.

  It had started in a small way during Dulac’s third year in Morocco, 1916, when he moved the name of a Fasi builder to the top of a list of those being considered for renovations to Dar Mnehbi. That, after all, was how things were done here.

  The secretary’s private income grew, as he made “recommendations” and provided inside information to everyone from village leaders to carpet-sellers. The building of Casablanca had proved especially lucrative. Business was good.

  It became even better when the Germans arrived.

  In 1921, the Rif Rebellion had swept across the iron mines leased to the Germans. Abd el-Krim’s forces—at that time merely fellow tribesmen of the Beni Urriaguel—destroyed every bit of equipment they could, and while the Rifi then withdrew, the mine owners dared not rebuild with the Revolt’s stolen artillery on the hills above.

  By the following spring, it was clear to the Germans that Spain was not about to regain control over the leased area in the near-future. So long as the rebellion flourished, one of the world’s greatest iron deposits would simply sit there, the ravaged equipment rusting away. And the leaders of the rebellion proved strangely uninterested in receiving payment for a restoration of what was, by international treaty, German property. Abd el-Krim denounced their offer as a bribe and told the delegation that if they returned, he would permit his tribesmen to decorate the walls with some European heads.

  So the Germans widened their scope, and one day a distinguished gentleman from Hamburg was seated across a restaurant table-cloth in Fez from François Dulac, suggesting a simple trade: the occasional gold coin, reassuringly stable compared to the post-War inflation of every currency under the sun, in exchange for any information that happened to come Dulac’s way concerning the leader of the Rif Revolt.

  “How many of the assassination attempts against Abd el-Krim had these Germans of yours behind them?” I demanded.

  “None of them,” Dulac protested, then undermined his indignation by adding, “that I know of.”

  “A most convenient ignorance,” I said.

  “You, a Frenchman, accepted money from Germans?” This from Mahmoud, motionless in his chair.

  “They are merely businessmen, international businessmen who happen to be based in Germany. Their claim to the ore is absolutely legal—it is no fault of theirs that Spain is incapable of keeping the peace in their Protectorate. In any event, I didn’t sell them French secrets, only Rif ones.”

  For the first time since his secretary had begun to talk, Lyautey lifted his gaze from the map. Under that icy glare, Dulac made a strangled noise, and said, “Er, only small French secrets, completely unimportant pieces of information, such as when you were meeting with the Sultan, and your thoughts on the rebellion. And, er, your health.”

  “Monsieur le Maréchal,” Holmes asked, “how long has Monsieur Dulac been handling your correspondence?”

  “For years, on and off. But more recently.”

  “As you have become … unwell. Often away in France?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Yes. And during that time, your secretary grew cocky.

  “You began, Monsieur Dulac, as a seller of information. You were happy to work both sides of the medina, as it were, gleaning facts and selling them to whoever might be interested. By the time the Germans showed up, you not only maintained, but had expanded ties with the local criminals to make quite an efficient criminal organisation of your own. You did not take sides—local villains or German industrialists, followers of Raisuli or supporters of the Revolt, it was all the same to you.

  “I imagine that one day, a client required more than mere information. He needed a man to do a job. By this time you knew precisely where such men were to be found, on all sides of the political spectrum. You could indeed provide a man—for a price.

  “And before you knew it, you were keeping all kinds of increasingly dangerous balls in the air: selling information both to and about Abd el-Krim; providing local assistance to Raisuli’s followers while at the same time selling their names to Raisuli’s enemies. You must surely have known how dangerous that could be, but once a man grasps a tiger’s tail, it is impossible to let go without encountering the other end of the beast.

  “You knew in your bones that sooner or later, one of them would notice, and you would encounter a blade.

  “Then I came to visit—a grey-haired foreigner, distant relation of the Resident General, no particular concern of yours. But at some point in the days that followed, after I left for the south on December eighth but before these two arrived in Fez ten days later, you overheard something that made you fear your crimes were coming to light. My name perhaps? In an overheard conversation between the Maréchal and Madame?”

  Dulac’s sickly expression accompanied Lyautey’s sounds of impending eruption. “That time, no, not … not conversation. I saw it in … the Maréchal’s journal.”

  “My private journal!”

  Holmes asked his cousin, “Did you happen to mention my brother there as well?”

  “Him? No, I certainly—”

  Holmes cut him off, resuming his analysis of Dulac’s crimes. “After that, matters escalated. Sending fake soldiers to Nurse Taylor’s door was dangerous enough, but to provide a motorcar for the purposes of abduction—”

  “Abduction?” Lyautey exploded. “Who’s been abducted?”

  “One moment,” Holmes told him. Pointing at Mahmoud, he asked Dulac, “Do you know this gent
leman?”

  “I don’t believe so,” the secretary replied.

  “The Maréchal knows him as M. Hassan, a man who came to chat on Thursday last. Yes, I see you remember the name. You were away from Dar Mnehbi at the time?”

  “I …”

  “Speak!” Lyautey snarled.

  “I was in the Ville Nouvelle, at a luncheon,” Dulac admitted.

  “But you were back here by the time M. Hassan returned and left a message for your employer. Why did it alarm you so?”

  “Of course it alarmed me. He wished to speak with the Maréchal about Abd el-Krim.”

  Holmes turned a raised eyebrow at Mahmoud.

  “I had little choice but to put it in writing,” Mahmoud explained. “The Maréchal had said he was leaving for Rabat that night. Using the Emir’s name ensured that he would make time to see me before he left.”

  “Instead of which, M. Dulac intercepted the message and decided that you were working for me. Yes,” Holmes reflected, “it can be a problem, having a recognised name. Those three syllables, and all the world begins to examine their sins. It is not so much coincidence, M. Dulac, as consequence: My presence was a catalyst for your guilt.

  “Taken separately, the visit of a famous detective and a stranger’s involvement with the Revolt would have meant nothing. Together, they convinced you that your treasonous acts were coming home to roost. That the great investigator Sherlock Holmes was onto you, and was busily insinuating his hirelings into your life.

  “You had two options: to throw yourself on the mercy of Maréchal Lyautey, or to stamp us all out. We know what you decided. Tell me, your team of five: They were supporters of Sherif Raisuli, is that not so?”

  “I … it is possible.”

  “You provided them with French uniforms, lent them the Sultan’s motorcar, which the Resident General is given free leave to use, and sent them to capture ‘M. Hassan’ and any of his companions. Did you know what your men would do with their captives?”

  “I … no.”

  “You took care not to enquire. As you did not look too closely at how much they were using you for their own purposes, once your jobs were done. However, when your men only captured the one, you must have been furious. The following morning, you sent a pair to the funduq, where they threatened the owner—who described them as ‘rough men’—but missed the boy. Two others—fluent in French, wearing French uniforms, with French shaves and haircuts—were later dispatched to Nurse Taylor’s surgery in the medina, after you received news of an injured foreigner brought to her during the night.”